Mccurry: Clinton Legacy Marred

BOCA RATON — There isn't much the Senate could have done to President Clinton to hurt him more than historians already will, former presidential press secretary Mike McCurry said Monday night.

When asked what people will say about Clinton 50 years from now, McCurry said: "They will render to him the punishment that is most unbearable to him."

McCurry, speaking at the south campus of Palm Beach Community College, said of all incoming presidents, Clinton might well have entered the White House "the most well-versed student of this office."

Now, no matter what Clinton does with the rest of his term, there will always be an asterisk to his legacy, he said.

McCurry was Clinton's spokesman from January 1995 until October 1998. He attributed the yearlong spectacle in Washington, in large part, to the end of the Cold War.

McCurry said Americans wouldn't have dreamed of impeaching a president when the country was embroiled in a life-or-death, good-versus-evil global conflict.

"The presidency is no longer a pedestal upon which we place a mythic and heroic statesman. It has been demythologized," he said, noting that even Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John F. Kennedy have been stripped of some of their majesty in recent years.

McCurry also blamed an information revolution. Most of the inner workings of government aren't very interesting, he said.

"It's kind of like I-95 at rush hour, lots of people just sitting there. And then some detestable person comes rushing up the shoulder," McCurry said. "I call it the politics of personal distraction: the way we see our attention span held by things that are easy to understand and cheaply entertaining."

McCurry said he thinks the First Couple's marriage will survive after Clinton leaves office.

"Hillary Clinton loves Bill Clinton. Why, I don't know, but I bet there are a lot of people in this room who can't explain why they love the lout next to them, either," he said.

He added that he doesn't think Hillary Rodham Clinton will run for Senate in New York because an election would be "ugly and nasty, and she knows that."

He speculated that she would instead settle in a high-profile job like Elizabeth Dole's former role with the Red Cross.

PBCC hired McCurry, who now earns his living as a consultant, to headline the first in a planned series of lectures to draw attention to the 25-acre campus on the northeast portion of Florida Atlantic University.

The speech raised about $18,000 for the outreach effort, with about 300 people paying $35 each to attend the lecture, and another 100 people buying $75 VIP tickets to the speech and a private reception afterward.